{"id":4706,"date":"2011-05-18T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2011-05-18T06:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/?p=4706"},"modified":"2014-12-23T16:22:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T10:52:44","slug":"if-you-have-a-book-you-need-a-website-you-can-update-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/if-you-have-a-book-you-need-a-website-you-can-update-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Have a Book You Need a Website (You Can Update Yourself)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Expert: Yael K. Miller<\/a><\/p>\n

Just to get something out of the way \u2013 yes, at Miller Mosaic we do put up WordPress-based websites for book authors, but that\u2019s not why I\u2019m saying authors need a website they can manage themselves.<\/p>\n

How do I know that, if you have a book, you need a website?<\/p>\n

First, I recently put up a website for a new author being published by a major publisher. The author was told that the author needed to get a website.<\/p>\n

Second, let\u2019s consider Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series. One of the biggest authors in the world, no question about it, and she has a website: http:\/\/stepheniemeyer.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

What do these two author websites have in common? The websites are not run by the publishers.<\/p>\n

How do I know this?<\/p>\n

First, the author whose website I put up was told by the publisher that the author needed to get a website. And besides putting it up, the author had to run the website.<\/p>\n

Second, Stephenie Meyer\u2019s website is run\/kept updated by Seth, Stephenie Meyer\u2019s brother \u2013 see http:\/\/stepheniemeyer.com\/webmaster.html<\/a><\/p>\n

So in all likelihood you the author will be in charge of running your website and keeping it updated.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s important to keep it updated with what\u2019s going on for two major reasons:<\/p>\n

First, so that fans don\u2019t lose interest in your upcoming work(s) because you will be kept in mind if they sign up to get updates from you.<\/p>\n

Second, search engines reward websites that update frequently by having those websites appear higher in the search ratings.<\/p>\n

For example, fans or potential fans search for more information using your name. Your website will appear higher in the search results than some articles you published five years ago about an esoteric subject of your day job.<\/p>\n

If your website needs to be updated frequently, there are two options: you update the website yourself or hire someone else to do it.<\/p>\n

From what I can tell, Seth does an excellent job of running Stephenie Meyer\u2019s website. But I don\u2019t know that for sure. I don\u2019t know if he immediately does an update when Stephenie asks him. This is an issue if you have someone else run your site.<\/p>\n

WARNING: Do NOT hire someone else to run\/update your site unless you have a contract created by a lawyer (not one you just printed out from the internet). The last thing you want is for someone to hold your book author website hostage.<\/p>\n

We, at Miller Mosaic, recommend you run\/update your own website.<\/p>\n

How do you do this if you \u201caren\u2019t good with technology\u201d or have never updated a website before?<\/p>\n

We recommend using WordPress as the technology to build your site on.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT: I\u2019m referring to the WordPress software you download at WordPress.org<\/strong> and NOT what you setup at WordPress.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you want to install WordPress yourself, here are the written instructions from WordPress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even though old and the video quality isn’t the greatest, these videos (should) still be correct:
\nCreate A WordPress Blog From Scratch – Part 1 to 4
\nPart 1<\/a>
\nPart 2<\/a>
\nPart 3<\/a>
\nPart 4 <\/a><\/p>\n

The only difference is that now you can pick the admin username. For security reasons, don’t use “admin.”<\/p>\n

Once your WordPress-based website is completely set up, it really is easy to use and update.<\/p>\n

And with a WordPress-based website, you can easily add BookBuzz\u2019s book widget<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC<\/a> on Twitter) is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic LLC. She is also working \u201cJack Strom and New Orleans Hoodoo,\u201d the first in a proposed middle grade fantasy series.
\nIf you already have a WordPress-based website setup, learn how to make changes yourself with the Miller Mosaic how-to WordPress videos<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Expert: Yael K. Miller Just to get something out of the way \u2013 yes, at Miller Mosaic we do put up WordPress-based websites for book authors, but that\u2019s not why I\u2019m saying authors need a website they can manage themselves. How do I know that, if you have a book, you need a website? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353,3,720],"tags":[9,467,239,486],"class_list":["post-4706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bbmtc","category-book-marketing","category-guest-posts","tag-authors","tag-blogging-for-authors","tag-wordpress","tag-wordpress-based-website"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}